McAuliffe finally endorses Obama admin’s anti-coal regs, and it only took twelve days

posted at 3:21 pm on October 7, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

I missed it last week, but Democratic fundraiser extraordinaire and candidate for Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe finally came out with a firm position on whether or not he supports the Obama administration’s artfully spun approach to slowly but surely eliminating the coal industry, and, drumroll please — he does. McAuliffe’s willing flip-floppiness on energy issues isn’t exactly a secret, but having said in the 2009 gubernatorial race that he “never wants another coal plant built” in Virginia, he stayed noticeably mum about the EPA’s de facto ban on new coal plants when the administration released them last month. No more, via WaPo:

Terry McAuliffe said Tuesday that he supports new Environmental Protection Agency rules on carbon emissions, taking a clear stance for the first time on an issue that has become a key flashpoint in the Virginia governor’s race. …

Asked about the issue again Tuesday during a tour of the Tyson’s Corner technology firm MicroTech, McAuliffe initially avoided a clear position again, saying: “I think we have to look at when the permits [for new coal plants] come in and look at how it applies and what the regulations are.”

When a reporter pressed McAuliffe on whether he supports the guidelines “as they are written right now,” McAuliffe responded: “I do, you bet. What I’ve looked at, I support what we need to do to obviously protect our air and our water.”

I can’t say I’m surprised. Whether his campaign took the time to do some internal polling or messaging strategery, or at the very least to wait for an opportune moment during which they could sneak the announcement through under the radar (oh hey, federal shutdown!), I would suspect that the administration’s anti-coal plans actually don’t play too badly with the oh-so-moderate and self-fancied eco-friendly denizens of the heavily populous and purplish-blueish Northern Virginia region (and the commonwealth’s less populous southwestern coal-country region may very well have already been inclined to go for Cuccinelli either way).

Regardless, the Cuccinelli campaign is running with it as another of Terry McAuliffe’s damaging economic prescriptions for Virginia; here’s a peak from his statement on the matter last week:

“How is it even possible that a person running to be Virginia’s chief executive would come out in support of a policy that will put our Commonwealth at a competitive disadvantage and put men and women – particularly in Southwest Virginia – out of work? As I have said repeatedly in recent months, the War on Coal is a war on Virginia’s poor and a war on competitiveness for Virginia. At a time of continued economic uncertainty, leaders in Richmond need to give our job creators and families more tools to pursue economic opportunity, not more burdens.

And they’re out with a new ad for the week hammering home the topic, but I don’t know if it will prove to be a needle-mover:

Blowback

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Cuccinelli’s ads need to make a better case for coal. Those dumb-ass Obama voters in Tyson’s Corner don’t understand the connection between the EPA’s attempts to regulate the coal industry out of business, and the cost of energy.

Those libs don’t give a damn about coal miners in Wise County; most of them couldn’t even find Wise County on a map of Virginia. But they will care about seeing their electric bills “necessarily skyrocket” once the EPA has shut down Virginia’s coal plants.

Cuccinelli needs to help voters in Virginia understand the cost — to them — of Obama’s (and his acolyte McAuliffe’s) idiotic coal policies.

Lesson for Today:
Virginian’s must understand one relationship and come to a logical conclusion. Terry McAuliffe was A #1 Butt Boy for Bill Clinton. Therefore he is not worth consideration as Govenor of YOUR STATE.

Idiot libs in NoVA, Ch’ville, and VA Beach will no doubt not care about the fate of Virginia’s poor. Never mind the weakness of the argument against coal. If there’s a ‘green’ message, the libs will follow it.

Exactly. The same can be said for Republicans broadly speaking. Unless you tie in costs for the average joe, it more just sounds like an idle populist argument for hard workin’ coal miners.

The left’s stated objective is to drive electricity and gasoline costs through the roof in pursuit of their climate religion, which hits the poor and middle class the hardest. (And yes, it needs to be this blunt – “Al Gore has no trouble filling up his gas tank – do you?”) This needs to be the crux of every energy advertisement.

For every 100 miners working in Southwest Virginia’s coal region, another 127 people are employed in other businesses that benefit from the industry, reveals a new economic report from King University. And, the report states, those numbers are a clear indication of the major, negative impact facing the Mountain Empire if local coal jobs and production continue to decline.

For every $100 made by households with someone directly employed in the coal-mining industry, another $64 cents is earned by someone working in another, related industry;

It takes nearly five new jobs in the retail industry to make up what’s lost when one coal-mining job is cut.

Many political and business officials across Southwest Virginia have blamed the regional coal industry’s struggles on the federal government, pointing to what they claim are efforts by President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency to de-emphasize the use of traditional coal as an American energy source.

Evans said it was important to research coal’s local economic following a recent U.S. Department of Energy study that suggested coal production across central Appalachia – Southwest Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia – might drop by as much 50 percent over the next 20 years.

“If that happens, we obviously could see some serious economic dislocation,” Evans said.

Cuccinelli’s ads need to make a better case for coal. Those dumb-ass Obama voters in Tyson’s Corner don’t understand the connection between the EPA’s attempts to regulate the coal industry out of business, and the cost of energy.

Those libs don’t give a damn about coal miners in Wise County; most of them couldn’t even find Wise County on a map of Virginia. But they will care about seeing their electric bills “necessarily skyrocket” once the EPA has shut down Virginia’s coal plants.

Cuccinelli needs to help voters in Virginia understand the cost — to them — of Obama’s (and his acolyte McAuliffe’s) idiotic coal policies.

He has to support those rules. If he doesn’t he loses his Dem money machine.

Johnnyreb on October 7, 2013 at 3:43 PM

That’s the kind of leader we all want in our governors – someone who kowtows to the meanest, most craven special interests who control money and power to the extent that the dictate policy and business operations. Why not let NE special interests dominate the Heart of the Confederacy, rebel? I’m sure you’re slavishly devoted to that kind of dictatorial regime.
.
How does McAuliffe plan to charge all those batteries for his battery-powered autos? I mean, if he had any battery-powered autos…

Don’t be fooled by the professed or implied imaginary benefits of reducing pollution or a reduced ecological footprint by supporting anti-coal regs. The intent is to make energy costs skyrocket in an effort to reduce consumption, and thereby making peoples’ lives miserable, in order to ‘save the planet’. The whole reason for the anti-coal regs is to control CO2, that molecule essential to life on earth, because of the fanatical leftists’ and environmentalists’ drummed up climate change hoax.

Don’t be fooled by the professed or implied imaginary benefits of reducing pollution or a reduced ecological footprint by supporting anti-coal regs. The intent is to make energy costs skyrocket in an effort to reduce consumption, and thereby making peoples’ lives miserable, in order to ‘save the planet’. The whole reason for the anti-coal regs is to control CO2, that molecule essential to life on earth, because of the fanatical leftists’ and environmentalists’ drummed up climate change hoax.

Dusty on October 7, 2013 at 4:10 PM

Obama bows to the interest of the Saudi’s. Part of the reason that the socialists here want to curtail energy production is driven by their masters in Saudi Arabia.

Liberal Area Birds or not, electing McAuliffe is a recipe for missing millions and massive layoffs. Well, if you go by his record: everything he touches turns belly-up after he walks away richer, leaving the workers and investors holding empty bags.

The state workers are the ones with the most to lose. Four years of this guy’s “management” and the Commonwealth will be forced to cut the employee rolls to make ends meet.

We have at the present time electrostatic precipitators that remove the particulates from the exhaust of the fossil fueled plants and scrubbers that remove the sulfur from the gases too. Each process has a product that’s marketable to the generating station.

It serves the VA GOP right for nominating Cuccinelli in a convention instead of holding a primary election. Bolling would have won both the primary and the general handily. Once again, movement conservatives have proven to be the GOP’s worst enemy.

Fortunately, Sarvis is running too, so I can forgo the painful experience of voting for McAuliffe.

Ahhhh, but Bolling didn’t put his name into the convention. He could have, but he didn’t. He could have run as an independent, but he didn’t have the support. He could have competed a couple of times, but he didn’t do it. Not much of a fighter….that one.

The Republican Party of VA is going to be changing. It’s slow, but it is happening. Virginia will be better for it.